1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to landline voice communication systems and particularly to Premises Equipment telephone answering machines and Central Office or non-customer premises voice mail systems.
Voice mail systems and answering machine systems are well known and widely popular due to the increasingly mobile nature of communicants.
Two major approaches are now commonly utilized to automatically answer the telephone for a called party while they are out of the office.
The first conventional approach is with a voice mail center located off premises from the called party, typically at a Local Exchange of the Central Office for the telephone company providing service between the calling and called communicant Voice or fax mail services are typically provided for a monthly fee to called communicants.
The benefit of this approach is that when a called party does not answer an incoming call, the call is rerouted to the voice mail center where the caller may leave a voice message for the called party in a private voice mail box. Meanwhile, the called party telephone line is immediately placed in an on-hook condition so that the called party may immediately receive another phone call. Even in the case where the called party telephone line is busy, the central office can detect a busy condition at the customer premises and can automatically route the subsequent caller to a voice messaging center, again typically located at a central office of the telephone company. These systems tend to be inconvenient for a called party in that the called party must manually call in to a voice mail center, enter voice mailbox number and pin data, and listen to the voice messages received. Another limitation in these types of systems is that it is often difficult to retrieve and store at the customer premises any voice messages left at the voice mail center.
The second conventional approach for voice messaging is with a telephone answering machine located at the customer premises and connected to the telephone line. The advantage of this approach is that no monthly charges are incurred from the telephone company and a wide range of features are available that are not ordinarily found in voice mail systems located off-premises. For example, popular voice/fax/modem cards may be installed in a bus of a personal computer, adapted to receive telephone calls and store voice and other message data in memory or on a DASD of the computer for archival or later review. Other stand-alone devices offer features such as caller id logging, integrated telephones etc. that are not available from the conventional voice mail center located off-premises are commonly available in stand-alone TAD or PC-based voice modem.
The disadvantage of these CPE based voice message devices is that, particularly in a POTS environment, when the line is busy, a calling party cannot leave a message. This can also be a problem, albeit occurring less frequently, in so-called xe2x80x9cvoice-viewxe2x80x9d type systems or ISDN systems. Typically, the calling party hears a busy signal. This is inconvenient in that the calling party must then call again later, and in the case of an urgent or time sensitive message, it may not be practical to convey urgent information at a later time. Because many people now conduct businesses from their home rather than a location with an operator and a central switchboard through a PBX, the frequency and volume of calls received often creates the potential for a caller receiving a busy signal more often than is desirable.
Many users now employ both types of voice messaging systems in combination to better meet their needs. By using a conventional TAD at the customer premises, a called party can have greater functionality and more control over the access and storage of voice and other message types, such as facsimile or e-mail communication, otherwise known as integrated messaging. These users also have voice mail or fax mail provided by the telephone office, which can relieve callers of the inconvenience of hearing a busy signal and enable those callers to leave a message even when the called party location is off-hook.
The disadvantage of the above combined solution is that the called party must then check two different locations for messages, particularly when away from the office. This can be very time consuming to the called party because the operation requires two call-in operations, two sets of PIN access codes, and two separate locations where disparate voice or other messages are stored.
In the case where a called party uses an ISDN type service, the problem is somewhat alleviated in that separate data channels may be used to simultaneously receive more than one telephone call at a time at a CPE device, such as an answering or facsimile machine. However, it is still conceivable that a called party could be using all the available data channels at the same time, thereby causing a caller to receive a busy signal or be transferred to a voice mail system off premises. It then becomes necessary for a called party to manually call up and retrieve voice messages from an off-premises voice mail system after they happen to notice a stutter dial tone or flashing indicator, or for a caller to have a place to call again when there is not a busy signal present.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In U.S. Pat. No.5,280,523 issued to Lee is shown a telephone line messaging waiting and ring indicator for visually indicating that a telephone is ringing or that a message is waiting.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,243,642 issued to Wise, Jr. et al., is shown a CPE device that issues a visual notification for a called party to alert them of a voice message received. The called party can then know to call-in to listen to the voice message stored at a voice message center.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,582,959 issued to Zimmerman et al. is shown a method and apparatus for a telephone message announcing device to check a remote telephone voice message system and notify a called party of the presence of messages stored at the system. The device further assists the called party in connecting with the system to listen to messages.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,172,404 issued to Hashimoto is shown a system for coupling a telephone answering device and voice mail system together such that when a TAD becomes full from incoming messages, the TAD can call the voice mail center and transfer the stored incoming messages to the voice mail center, thus allowing the TAD to then receive more voice messages without overwriting previous messages received. However, no method is shown for automatically transferring messages from the voice mail system to the TAD in response to detecting a particular dial tone signature that would indicate a new message has been received.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,327,493 issued to Richmond et al. is shown a device for periodically interrogating the telephone line and detecting tones, such as a stuttered dial tone indicating a message waiting at a voice mail center, and activating a visual indicator in response to a detection. The visual indicator can inform the called party to call the voice mail center to retrieve messages received in their absence.
However, none of the above prior art addresses the need for an automatic means to transfer voice messages from a voice or fax mail center to a conventional TAD for local or remote retrieval by a called party.
Needed is a method that can allow a called party to receive all voice and other messages received in a central location in a timely and automatic manner so that they may more readily respond to incoming messages received.
In such a method, callers could be assured of more rapid retrieval of their message by the called party and the called party is relieved from having to periodically interrogate the line for a stutter dial tone condition, or be physically present to see a message waiting indicator.
Furthermore, remote retrieval by the called party while away from the office would be improved in that a called party would no longer have to call two disparate locations to hear messages, as all messages would ultimately be transferred to a called party location.
Finally, a called party has a need for an alternative to purchasing additional phone lines to avoid busy signal condition for calling parties. Because of the limitations as to new telephone number availability and the added cost for even basic service for telephone lines, there is a need for a more economical solution that can give a more professional image for small businesses that can centralize messaging storage and retrieval in their own office. Typically, voice mail services are considerably less per month than the cost of even one additional local telephone number.
One objective of the disclosed invention is to utilize auditory stutter dial tones or other signals received along with the dial tone from the telephone line at a CPE communication device to initiate an automatic dial-out sequence, in response to receiving a message at an off-premises message location.
Another objective of the disclosed invention is to automatically connect a CPE communication device to the telephone line to establish communication with an off-premise message center.
Another objective of the disclosed invention is the automatic generation by the CPE communication device of necessary mailbox access information, once communication has been established, for the retrieval and storage of voice or other message information transferred from the off-premises message center to the CPE communication device.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide one centralized location for automatic message storage and retrieval that is more convenient for a called party while eliminating the possibility that an important caller might receive a busy signal.
It is a further objective of the present invention to enable for the incrementing of an incoming message counter in a CPE that counts the number of messages directly received at the CPE and also accumulates the number of messages transferred from an off-premises location and stored at the CPE thereby indicating at one location the total number of messages received.
It is a further objective of the present invention to disable a telephone apparatus connected to the CPE communication device while message transfer is taking place so that a called party cannot interrupt the message transfer from the off-premises message center to the CPE communication device by inadvertently taking the handset of the CPE communication device off-hook.
It is a further objective of the present invention to allow the called party to monitor a message being transferred from the off-premises message center to the CPE communication device while the transfer is occurring, particularly in the case of a voice message.
These and additional objectives and advantages will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art from the detailed description provided herein.